I’m going to be doing the angry welding thing again today in the hopes that it helps me pass my TIG vertical plate certification today. It’ll be cooling on the instructors desk by noon Pacific time.
I’ve spend 10 hours practicing since Thursday and should be good to go, but well wishes sent this direction are appreciated.
And I’ll be hanging this sign for good luck
Only one good one this week. But it is so good that it makes up for the lacking from the other artists.
But, in case that isn’t enough for you, here is a picture of an old racist supporting mandatory voter ID.
Via Volokh: Seems that in CA (& Idaho?) if you kill a person in self defense and you also happen to want the person dead for other reasons, you can lose the affirmative defense.
The take away, for those in CA & ID, keep your loathings to yourself, lest they be held against you.
Inert gas welding might be getting very interesting in the near future.
The EPA jumps the shark, banning – Argon
Its hard to imagine a more inoffensive substance than Argon. As a noble gas, Argon is chemically inert – it participates in no chemical reactions whatsoever, except under exotic conditions – there are no known chemical compounds which can survive at room temperature which include Argon. Argon is not a greenhouse gas.
But Argon is incredibly useful to industry – among other things, is used as a “shield†gas. Anyone who welds Aluminium or Stainless Steel will be familiar with Argon, which is used with MIG and TIG welders, to blow oxygen away from the electric welding arc, to prevent oxidative damage to the weld joint. Any effort to regulate the use of this harmless substance would do incalculable damage to American industrial competitiveness, for no benefit whatsoever.
So why on Earth would the EPA plan to ban something as inoffensive as Argon? IceAgeNow has a theory – they think Argon is part of a list supplied by a scientifically illiterate NGO, which the EPA plans to rubber stamp.
Rolf left this story in the comments yesterday. While I think that IAN is correct in their theory as to how it got included on the list, if this rule is allowed to go through the eco-cosialists will use it as “proof” that all Argon use must be banned and set about ruining US industry even further (since that is their actual goal).
Victory is mine!
Boom!
Apparently, it pays to weld angry. That is what a successful Direct Overhead weld bend test looks like when you’re done.
As the root bend coupon was being pushed through, my instructor was looking at it and said “it looks like we’re going to have to measure this one too.” So I got ready to be disappointed. When it dropped out of the bending machine, he snatched it up and said “nope, no to need to measure it.” without a measure of emotion on his face, and I was feeling like shit. He flipped it over and handed it to me. As I flipped it over to look at it, he said “there is no way that is close to 1/8.”
Because it was 1/32.
Had the same on the face bend coupon, but got a compliment on the blending waves you can still sort of see.
So, practice and get another test plate ready for a Vertical test on Monday. The instructor and I went through the procedures for a successful test today and then I knocked a practice plate out of the park, so I’m feeling confident.
Tuesday will be Vertical bending test day and then Aluminum TIG welding. After that will be Stainless Steel TIG. Then, Dual Shield and MIG certification tests. The quarter is over on December 11th, so not a moment to waste. I’ll likely be going in on Saturdays from here on out to get ready.
When we last left my certification test plate, it was sitting on my instructor’s desk, awaiting its destruction.
It was going to be cut into 5 pieces: The two ends with the strongbacks on them were to be cut off 1in in from the end, then an inch and a half from the newly created ends, they were to be cut again, leaving three “coupons”. The center one, with my ID stampings was to be saved for identification purposes, and the other two were to be bent, one in each direction, for testing purposes.
Like this
So, did I pass the test?
The short answer is no.
The long answer is, this is what failed me
That wrinkle you see about 1/3 of the way from the top is a crack that is 5/32 of an inch long. I am allowed a 1/8 inch lock crack.
FAIL
I’m trying not to feel bad about it, and being unsuccessful. I took my direct overhead test today, and the attitude from this failure is welded into every 32nd of every inch of that plate. We’ll see tomorrow if anguish welds better than happiness. Also, I was informed that I will not be allowed to retest my vertical weldment until next Monday.
Needless to say, the next liberal arts major in my general vicinity that whines about how hard his or her sociology final was is going to find themselves about a foot heavier. Because one of my feet will have been broken off in their ass.
And can’t get up.
Thankfully (for the Obama Administration), the media is there to pick them up and carry them off the side of the road where they’ll be promptly ignored.
CDC admitted disease imported as states data reveals illegal immigrant links
In straightforward defiance against the White House position of non-transparency, previous communication from the Center for Disease Control discovered Tuesday acknowledged that 97 percent of the measles found in United States this year could be attributed to “importations from at least 18 countries.â€
Soon, after school doors opened this semester, doctors and hospitals across the country began tackling massive flare-ups of infectious diseases and severe respiratory illness among children. Experts have called these outbreak unprecedented.
“It’s worse in terms of scope of critically ill children who require intensive care,†noted Children’s Mercy Hospital’s division director for Infectious Diseases, Dr. Mary Anne Jackson. I’ve practiced for 30 years in pediatrics, and I’ve never seen anything quite like this.â€
While analyzing hundreds of documents, articles, and releases for this article, this examiner discovered on Tuesday that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) disclosed in a May 29, 2014 press release that “nearly all cases of measles this year have been associated with international travel by unvaccinated people.†As thousands of illegal immigrants from South and Central America crossed over the U.S.-Mexico border, the CDC recognized that this was “the largest number of measles cases in the United States in the first five months of a year since 1994.â€
By the end of May, CDC also declared that 97 percent of the measles cases “were associated with importations from at least 18 countries. More than one in seven cases has led to hospitalization.â€
By the middle of the week, these CDC officials will be declared fear mongers whose facts are racist.
Yay! My most substantive post in days (maybe weeks)!
Before we get started, let me put a couple items out for the general information of the non-welders out there, which will likely be most of y’all:
First, I have to take this test twice. The first is this one, the next will happen Monday and will be in the “Direct Overhead” position. I’ll take pics of that one too.
The piece you will see at the end will be destroyed during the final part of the inspection. Likely by this afternoon.They’ll bandsaw it into five pieces, two will get thrown away, two others will get bent into a U-shape. It can crack, but only a little. It is best to not have any cracks. The third will be saved and the two that were bent will get welded to it. I’ll get the pieces back on Monday. If I fail, I have to weld for another eight logged hours before I can retake the test. So, if I fail, I’ll be redoing it on Tuesday.
Also, this is a vanity exam. No one welds heavy plate with the TIG process. An eight inch weldment took me three hours. It could have been done in 15 minutes with MIG or 10 minutes with Dual Shield wire. I am only taking this test to get a piece of paper that says I know how to weld TIG. The potential employer I interviewed with in August will want the MIG and Dual Shield wire certifications, and I will get them before the quarter ends. But there is a different potential employer who is looking for people with TIG certs to manufacture and repair surgical equipment. That is why I want this cert.
Drop below the fold for the nitty-gritty (plus a bonus!).
Today is Day 1 of my GTAW 3G (TIG Heavy Plate Vertical) Certification Test. I should be able to remember to get pics of the proceedings for tomorrow.
I won’t know the results until mid-day Monday though, because the plate has to cool to room temperature and then get destroyed in the test. Which is fine by me because I’ll need the “going to town” attitude since that will be my test for GTAW 4G (TIG Heavy Plate Overhead).
I’ve been practicing for over a week and shouldn’t need a whole lot of luck, but any well wishes are appreciated.
That a leftist will be honest with you.
For weeks, a large portion of the nation was demanding that every ounce of information in the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO be released because they believed it would make the Brown look like a victim and Officer Wilson look like a murderer.
Now, information is coming out from the grand jury testimony, and it doesn’t look good for their worldview. So they are demanding to know who is behind the release of the information and that they be silenced and prosecuted.
The left is never satisfied with the results of their own demands. That is why calling them “progressives” is accurate. They progressively ask for more and more, but are never satisfied and, not learning from their earlier mistakes, they demand more of what didn’t make them happy at the outset.
Worse yet, they demand that you live with what doesn’t make them happy.
